And while the IDB is active in that program, government is also eagerly looking to the bank for 6.2 million US dollars for assistance to the health sector in the COVID crisis. It is supposed to arrive at the end of this month, and for the government, it can't come too soon. That's because - in very lean times - the government sees it as a much needed foreign exchange inflow to buttress the foreign reserves which have sagged below the three month benchmark.
The Prime Minister explained yesterday:
Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
"We want those monies to come before we have to face the particular crunch that will be represented by the fact that there are certain essential imports that must be financed. We certainly got to pay CFE for electricity, that's in foreign currency. I think we pay FORTIS, so I don't know how much we are getting in terms of electricity from them, but we pay foreign currency there as well. So there are the continuing foreign currency obligations and at some point we are going to if this continue as they are, face a crisis. That's another instance in which tourism is all important, because that's as everybody knows our largest foreign exchange earner, but I don't foresee any collapse. I don't foresee any pressures that would cause the peg to slip any time soon."
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